No more talk, please, about fusion being an exhausted seam: Tama: Espace is brilliant proof that there's heaps more gold to be mined from it. But that's because the elements being put together are so suited: Malian griot and Guinea-Bissau Creole are not cognate, but they inhabit the same sound-world--particularly when they are both filtered through the music-scene in Paris--and the adaptable guitar of Sam Mills seems to blend quite happily with anything liberated and melodious. So here we have three extraordinary singer/songwriters--Tom Diakite and Mamani Keita from Mali, and Djanuno Dabo from Guinea-Bissau, each with their own timbre and style; the backing includes a galaxy of instrumental talent. Most notable among the latter is Manecas Costa, Guinea-Bissau's superstar in waiting (soon to release his own debut album on the Late Junction label), whose gumbe rhythms have a uniquely infectious quality. Every track here alternates between exaltation, virtuosity and down-home charm, for this is an acoustic CD, not an electronically tricked-up one; the riffs and songs may belong to today, but they have their roots deep in the past. --Michael Church
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